Research

Last year, the ALS ice bucket challenge viral videos ran rampant across the internet, and brought in millions of dollars for Lou Gehrig’s Disease research. In a decidedly crazy twist, it seems that money has been used to find and diagnose an entirely different disease, and it’s one that could change the face of medicine forever.

Researcher Jordan Marsh says that the ALS videos and the money raised by them has helped them to discover a new breakthrough in a specific virus that has been plaguing the world, but has yet to be contained.

“We used the ALS money to look into the root of this long-standing virus, and thankfully, we have been able to pinpoint where it began, and also how to contain it from spreading further,” said Marsh. “It’s one for the books, for sure.”

For the books it will be, because as of this time, Marsh is not saying what discovery they have made.

“At this time, I am just going to say that it’s a huge deal, and we are very excited, but we want to get all the information out at once, and accurately, so you’ll have to wait until our findings are released in the National Book Of Medical Journals.”

Researchers at Gavaland University in Boston, Massachusetts, have discovered what they say is a “cure” for long-term depression and bi-polar symptoms, and it’s been staring you in the rear-end the entire time. The research team has concluded that people who consistently huff and smell their own feces will lead happier, healthier lives.

“The more often you smell your own gas, or your own feces, the happier you will be,” said Dr. Richard Kimball, who headed the study. “As it was so eloquently put in one of those Austin Powers movies, ‘Everyone likes the smell of their own brand.’ This, it turns out, is extremely true, to the point that smelling your own gas or feces will actually brighten and calm your moods.”

Dr. Kimball says that they followed the effects over 4 years on 200 patients, all of whom were required to sniff their poop in front of the doctors, multiple times a day, over the course of the study.

“At first it was weird taking a shit in front of a doctor, but they said it was because they didn’t want anyone to be swapping their shit with someone else’s, because it would ruin the study,” said Maria Johnson, who was one of the first to sign up. “At any rate, it turns out that my mood really was lifted from sniffing shit, so I’m glad I took part.”

The study participants were not given anything for their help in the research other than a high-fiber diet and a smile.

Researchers at the prestigious Harvard Community College have been working tirelessly over the last decade in a search for a link between Autism and any other outside source. Today, they’ve released information that they say conclusively links Autism with chemtrails.

“To think that Autism is caused by vaccines is ridiculous and preposterous,” said Dr. Emmett Brown, who headed the study. “Vaccines are necessary and important. What is not necessary is chemtrails. Those whispy bits of clouds you see left in the sky after a plane goes by, or those billowing clouds during a new morning sky – those are the things that could very well be giving your child Autism.”

Dr. Brown says that children who are exposed to the hazards of being outside too young can easily “contract” Autism.

“If the hospital is wanting you to take your new baby home, and you look out and see chemtrails, do not take that baby outside. Wait it out, it’s very important,” said Dr. Brown. “A baby exposed to chemtrails is over 0.099873% more likely to end up having Autism than a baby who lives inside, all the time, in a plastic bubble or incubator.”

Dr. Brown says his “startling” finds and study conclusions will be published in his “home medical journal” this month.

Feminists will be pleased, but teachers unsurprised, by findings in a recent study which show that girls are simply “better at school” than boys. On the other side of the coin, boys are reportedly “better at copying girls’ work” than girls, somewhat evening out ultimate scores. The research was funded by the Education Matters foundation, in hopes that the age old debate could finally be settled and we can start worrying about real issues, such as bullying and falling standards.

“We always knew we were better than boys,” said girls, collectively. “Now that there’s empirical evidence, no one can knock us off our perch. Girls rule.”

Boys, however, had a different spin on the findings.

“This doesn’t show that girls are better than us,” said the entire boys population. “It just shows they’re bigger suckers. We know we can just copy, so why would we do the work? Letting them do it for us, and taking advantage of their insufferable conscientiousness, is by far the smarter thing to do.”

Hedley Turner, who headed up the massive study, says that the results may be more deceptive than they seem.

“What the data shows is simply that girls are better at school. This could be for a number of reasons. It could be because the teachers treat them better. It could be because their parents expect more of them. And it could be because they need to take something positive out of the malicious environment that is our school system.”

The data is reportedly set to be forgotten for the most part, but brought up in arguments between the sexes for decades to come.

Researchers from the Oregon University revealed a shocking truth on a yesterday’s press conference. Doctor Maria Vega and her team of researchers spend four years conducting an extensive study on more than one hundred different weight loss pills, which included laboratory tests, tests on animals such as rats and monkeys, and tests on human volunteers.

“We know this is going to be a shocking news for many people,” said Vega at a conference. “but our research showed without any doubt that weight loss pills have no results on a human volunteers.” According to Dr. Vega, initial results were promising. Laboratory results and tests on the rats were showing good results, and the animals were actually losing weight just by being fed low-calorie diets and given multiple fat-burning pills available in drug stores across the country. When they started to conduct tests on humans, though, everything went the other direction.

“We instructed our volunteers to go on a low calorie diet and start to exercise when they take the pills, just as they recommend on the packages,” Vega stated. “It worked great on rats, but in humans, the results were not good. In fact, they were the opposite.”

When a journalist asked about people losing weight if they ate less and exercised even without the weight loss pills, Vega answered that was not a goal of this study. “Our study was focused on a weight loss pills, and no other ways to lose weight. I don’t know why were rats losing weight,” she said. “People, though, were actually gaining weight in some cases while on the pills. Clearly, these pills are a marketing ploy. We have skinny rats, and fat people on these drugs right now.”

Following the press conference, the stock market experienced significant fluctuations – several major weight loss pill producers, as well as pharmaceutical companies saw their stocks value fall, and the CEO of one of the major manufacturers of diet pills is naturally furious. “We are going to do two things,” said the CEO, who spoke anonymously. “We will sue those so-called scientists, and we will order an independent study to prove our pills do have results. The good kind, I mean. Not the fattening kind.”

“I don’t know what to do,” said Marlene Jacobs, 290lbs, of Concord, Massachusetts. “I use at least two dozen different pills and I am still looking for the right one, but how am I supposed to lose weight if they don’t work? They want me to stop eating or something? This is ridiculous! They’re liars, and should be forced to prove their pills are miracles before calling them that!”

The National Association of Sleep Comfort and Coziness (NASCC), a scientific sleep and comfort research program based at the University of Connecticut, released scientific findings accumulated by a clinical study earlier this week showing that 87% of Americans fear having their bare, uncovered feet snatched by the mythical creature known as ‘The Boogeyman’.

Dr. Jason Harper, who leads all studies conducted by the NASCC explained the details of the month-long clinical trial in an interview with Empire News yesterday morning.

“For this study we compiled five-hundred participants, five males and five females from all fifty U.S. states. The trial, which was conducted over a period of thirty days, showed that the overwhelming majority of test subjects could not get a good, sufficient night of sleep if their feet were left uncovered, no matter the temperature,” Dr. Harper said. “Upon further analysis, it was ultimately discovered that 87% of the test subjects had the subconscious, and overwhelming feeling that some mysterious being, aka ‘The Boogeyman’, would come along and grab their uncovered feet as they tried to coax themselves into falling asleep.”

Mark Grammar, of Louisville, Kentucky, who was a participant in the study, told Empire News that he did not consciously believe in ‘The Boogeyman’ before the thirty-day trial, but has had an overpowering sense of fear when trying to sleep at night with his feet uncovered all his life.

“It sounds crazy I know,” Grammar said. “I just can’t fall asleep at night with my bare feet left uncovered because I expect some person or creature to come along and grab them. I would never have believed it, but the study showed that it is indeed a powerful manifestation of my subconscious mind, and that is why most people feel so vulnerable about leaving their bare feet uncovered at night.”

Dr. Harper revealed that 56% of test subjects were females who have a fear of the foot-snatching creeper, leaving 31% males who fear the intimidating, sleep depriving, podiatrist-aspiring beast.

Tanya Brown, of San Diego, California, one of the fearless 13%, said that she laughed all the way through the experiment. “It was such a hoot! Most everyone would be so tired everyday because they couldn’t sleep because they were afraid of the Boogeyman! I mean really? The struggle is indeed real! The Boogeyman gonna getcha!” Brown said as she laughed out loud.

A joint statement released today from the USDA and the FDA discusses new information, based on several years of research, that proves that a gluten-free diet, done solely on a pretentious, bandwagon-style mentality, will give you cancer.

Researchers and medical staff at the Wyatt Institute in Clearwater, Michigan say that they have been working on the effects of a gluten-free diet on people who do not have Celiac Disease or other wheat and gluten allergies. According to reports, their discovery was ‘surprising.’

“We’ve known for many, many years that persons with Celiac Disease should have a gluten-free or extremely low-gluten diet,” said Dr. Marvin Sheer, of the Wyatt Institute. “Those people need to eat a special diet so as not to become extremely ill. Over the last few years, though, many people are jumping onto a ‘gluten-free’ diet bandwagon, because for some strange reason they think that gluten is bad for them. It’s not, by the way. Plus, it’s part of nearly everything that you eat.”

Gluten is a substance present in cereal grains, especially wheat, that is responsible for the elastic texture of dough. It is found, in one shape or form, in everything from cereals to sliced bread, pastas, and even crackers.

“What our study concluded is that these people, who just decided to go ‘gluten-free’ because it’s the fad, or because they think it will help them lose weight, are not getting enough gluten in their diets. This, by the way, can already be an unhealthy option. But heck, wouldn’t you know it, we discovered that it also gives these people cancer – brain cancer, to be precise,” said Sheer.

“What happens is, these people, they stop eating gluten, because it’s the ‘cool’ thing to do. It’s hip. They read about going ‘gluten-free’ on Facebook, and they have to try it. After all, their friend Jeanne lost 2 pounds going gluten-free,” said Professor Charles DeWitt. “These poor people, though, when they go gluten-free just because everyone else is, they forget to use their brains, and the less you use your brain, the more likely you are to develop a cancer in it. If you’ve been gluten-free for more than 15 minutes, and you don’t have Celiac Disease, chances are you are on your way to having brain cancer as we speak.”

Dr. Sheer says that people with Celiac Disease have nothing to worry about, though.

“If you have an actual, medical reason that you should stay away from gluten, keep doing it. Our research shows that in your case, you are using your brain by following sound medical advice,” said Sheer. “If anything, not eating the gluten might make your brain more powerful. We’re still working on that study, though.”

Sheer suggests that anyone who is currently on a gluten-free diet unnecessarily to stop immediately, and to just ‘eat your damn food like a normal person’, especially if you’re out at a restaurant.

“You’ll make every waitress, cook, and other restaurant employees happier if you do, because I’ll just tell you this right now – it’s 100% impossible for a restaurant to cook you a gluten-free meal. Don’t be pretentious. Order that fried chicken, and enjoy. And don’t forget to tip!”

It was just another normal day in government spending this morning, when House members voted to pus through a $600 million dollar grant to help scientists research properties of natural gas. Dr. Issac Merda, professor of methane studies for the University of Kentucky, requested the grant almost 2 years ago. Dr. Merda says that he and his colleagues plan to study the truth behind the age-old adage ‘He Who Smelt It, Dealt It.’

“We have been working on this project for several years, and as of this summer we had run out of private funding,” said Dr. Merda. “We know it was going to happen, and at the end of 2012 I requested this grant from the government so that we could continue this extremely important scientific research.”

Dr. Merda and his partner, Professor Richard Teile, began their research in the fall of 2009, after a late-night Mexican bean burrito party with their lab employees got a little crazy.

“We were having a good time, eating some burritos and drinking a couple of beers, when in the middle of the laughter, Ol’ Ike let one rip – hard. He was right in the middle of pounding out a triple meat and cheese taquito, and although we all knew it was him, it was our friend Larry who smelt it first,” said Teile. “We all instantly stopped in our tracks. We knew it wasn’t Larry who nearly shat himself silly, so how was he the one who smelled the rancid stench before Dr. Merda? We all jumped to work instantly, knowing that it was a big deal, and that our research could change everything.”

“Oh man, it was really nasty smelling, too,” said Larry, the custodian in the science center at the University of Kentucky. “I happened to pass through, and was instantly like ‘Damn, who let that one go?’, and all the lab guys, they instantly got quiet. Then they all got really serious looks on their faces, and jumped right into work. It took me damn near a whole bottle of Febreeze to get that stank out, by the way.”

Merda says that they are very close to ‘cracking the code’ wide open, and that when they publish their results in the Journal of Scientific Discovery next spring, the world will be forever changed.

“The things that this little mishap has led to, discoveries and thoughts you can’t yet to imagine about human bodily functions in relation to their surroundings. It’s just going to boggle you’re mind,” said Merda. “This grant being pushed through will help us finally come to a completion of our study. $600 million will buy a lot of tacos, Coronas, and Goya beans.”

So far, the team is keeping a tight lip on their findings and research. As they continue to study the effects of smelling it versus dealing it out, there is currently no word on whether or not doing the crime really does correlate with making the rhyme.

Slenderman, a noted internet sensation, has lately become the subject of severe scrutiny, due to a rash of killings and attacks where the offender has blamed their actions on the supposedly fictional meme.

In the past few weeks, there have been at least three crimes linked to Slenderman. In the first attack, two 12 year-old Wisconsin girls allegedly stabbed a friend 19 times, saying they did it “to honor Slenderman.” In a violent murder involving a man who killed two police officers and another person before ultimately killing himself, it was noted that the killer would often dress up as Slenderman. Most recently, a Cincinnati mother is convinced that her daughter was influenced by Slenderman to attack her in their home with a knife.

John Gray, director at the National Museum of American History, has reported some astonishing new facts involving the Slenderman. “There has been so much talk of this character lately, so much mystery surrounding what is supposedly only a new thing, an internet meme, I really wanted to go back and look into it a little further.”

Gray says that after the stories of Slenderman hit the news in recent weeks, it inspired him to go back and re-read some of the stories and articles about people who survived the attacks on the World Trade Center.

“Reading some of the reports from people who got out of the buildings at the time, some told of pretty frightening stuff about a spectral figure, standing with arms open. They all described him the same way: featureless face, tall and skinny, and wearing all black or an all black suit.”

These astonishing finds persuaded Gray to continue his reasearch. He went further back in history to see if he could find any retelling of stories that included a similar man of shape and stature.

“I figured I was nuts. I did my research, and knew that this Slenderman was an internet mock-up of something that was supposed to be scary, and Eric Knudesn only created him in 2009. So you can imagine how shocked I was to see that similar entities to the Slenderman actually were fairly deep-seeded in the history of our country, as well as the world.”

Gray enlisted friend and noted writer and researcher Dr. Michael Enslin to help him trace back any accounts of Slenderman that could be found.

“I discovered many stories about WWII in which as the bombs were dropping, people were being corralled by a large light skinned man with dull, almost non-existent features, who drew them towards death by opening his arms.” Said Dr. Enslin. “Most of the people killed in the stories were children. I was awestruck.”

There pair found other similar stories linked to World War II, but it also seems to play out the same in other wars throughout history.

“Another story we discovered was about Vietnam, where Americans were firebombing fields and a similar situation happened,” said Gray. “Slenderman, or at least a figure similarly described, was seen almost corralling people to him, offering what seemed like solace in the crazy time. Of course the solace was a lie; all of the people were killed in the attacks.”

With these two huge connections to Slenderman, Gray and Dr. Enslin decided to take it even further back, to see how deep into history they could find reference to the same specter.

“We dusted off old books, and we went as far back as resources allowed, to the mid 1400’s – when Vlad Dracul III reigned in Wallachia.” Said Dr. Enslin. “We found translated letters that sent shivers down our spine.”

“We killed 23,884 Turks, without counting those whom we burned in homes, or the ones whose heads were cut by our soldiers.” The letters read. “We also failed to count the ones taken by The Tall Man, who lured the peasants to us, arms outstretched. He brought us souls, and took many himself.“

“It’s a nightmare,” said Gray. “I wish I’d never started this research. If this has been happening this long, then it could go on forever.”